There is still something that bothers me even five years on, something I think I might be better able to clarify now thanks to a commenter at Pandagon. About September 11, Dan of Tinny Words says:
The most notable thing about life since that that day, for me, is that I’ve never felt anger over it, and certainly not fear. Only sadness.
And then that smartass* Auguste adds:
Which, to the wingnuts, makes you less of a person.
I am not in any position to speak for "the wingnuts." I am only able to speak for myself and this is how I feel about it: People grieve differently. People process loss differently. I don't think Dan's less-than for processing that day differently than I did.
I find the Kübler-Ross model helpful to illustrate more or less how I grieve. You are probably familiar with it; if not, here's a brief article explaining it, or here is my super-short version. Kubler-Ross enumerated five stages people move through when grieving:
1. Denial.
2. Anger.
3. Bargaining.
4. Depression.
5. Acceptance.
It's a handy enough model, but what often gets left unsaid about it is that not every person experiences all five stages. People also may not move through them in the order listed; they may cycle or bounce back and forth among states. It isn't a linear process.
Again, when I read a comment like Dan's I don't see him as less of a person. I see him as someone who grieves differently than I do. There is nothing wrong with Dan or people like him. And there is nothing wrong with the people for whom anger was an early or prominent reaction on September 11.
I think back to the arguments that occurred regularly in the comments at Michele Catalano's old blog, A Small Victory (now defunct). They occurred mainly between Michele and other commenters (including myself) who were angry; and other commenters who not only weren't angry, but weren't tolerant of anyone else being angry. Not being angry yourself is not a problem. Not tolerating anger from others on the grounds that you're not angry, so why should they be?--Is.
They tried to shame us out of our anger. "It's been a year; isn't it time you moved on?" Or my personal favorite, The Hate Card, would be drawn: "I refuse to let what happened that day fill me with hatred, Michele, and you shouldn't either."
I don't think Michele was filled with hatred and I don't think I was filled with hatred and I don't think most of the ASV commenters were filled with hatred. But what I did see in the time between 2001-2004 were a lot of people, again including myself, who became increasingly resentful about being nagged to relinquish our anger before we were ready to do that. We clung to our anger all the harder as a result. And this should have surprised exactly no one.
You don't jolly someone out of depression by telling them to just quit being depressed. You don't crush someone's denial by telling them to stop denying reality. You don't thwart someone's bargaining by telling them trading is closed for the day. And you don't defuse someone's anger by telling them to quit being angry. To be honest, I'm getting a little angry all over again myself just recalling it. The people who dwell for a time in the stages of grief must be allowed to move through them at their own individual paces. About this I am adamant, not least because attempts to force them through a particular stage faster, attempts to make them bypass a stage completely, usually have the opposite effect from the one intended.
I tried once to write about what got me reading right-wing blogs and why I took comfort from them after September 11. I don't think I did a very good job of it. I'm not good with feelings. But the short version is that weblogs provided an outlet for my anger at a time when it seemed to me that every other form of media (with the possible exception of talk radio, which I have never enjoyed), was telling me that the worst thing an American could do after September 11 was to be angry. Well, I said bullshit to that and I think many people did. And I think that need for an outlet for anger, more than any other reason, is why we've got the idiotic wingnut punditocracy we do today: Because they got the traffic push early from people like myself, people who weren't finished moving through anger yet.
(I also think traffic is on the wane for a lot of them because people are finally finishing up with anger, but that's another post for another day.)
I don't knock Dan. In a way he's a lucky fellow to have been able to skip the anger. Anger is exhausting. I only wish more people who leaned left had been a little less quick to shush the angry, because some anger is legitimate. It is only a problem if one stays stuck in it too long or directs it at the wrong targets.
*Naturally I mean that as a compliment.
42 comments:
No! NOT THE BACON!
Oh--KEVIN Bacon. Well, him neither. He just doesn't do it for me.
And then Bush pissed it all away -- the global support, the opportunity to neutralize Al Qaeda, my fleeting relative lack of disgust for this country's government -- and I got angry again.
This is something I did not understood well back then, I think because I am often a moron: That someone could be legitimately angry at the government without hating America.
So while I'm busy noting that I often felt shut down by some on the left, I might as well own up that I doubtless shut down plenty of people myself by denying that such anger could be in any way justifiable.
I can't worry about whether you sound patronizing when I apparently just typed "I did not understood" on my blog, Rox. Sober, even.
I've finally passed the anger stage, but I will never spend time justifying the anger I had to anyone. It's what I felt.
I'm angry at different things now, but not in such a voracious way.
I just reposted my comment here and linked back, btw.
and, well, you know, i will say this for My People, if that is what we are (i.e. the loosely-defined left or at least liberals): we tend to have, my theory by me, "issues" wrt anger. in general, i mean.
you know: it's destructive. it leads to violence. it's IRRATIONAL, and the thing about the loosely-defined...well, a lot of us, really, not actually sure where the ideology markers break down, in fact...but, we have our ideological roots in the Enlightenment. which, lord knows it's not like any of the dudes back then never got angry--witness Voltaire or any of the Founding Fathers--but, you know. -Rational.- Let's all take a deep breath and really examine this in the calm light of day. At least. and, too: we root for the underdog, and, well, it's hard for a lot of people to completely get behind bombing the crap out of people "back to the Stone Age" when they're ALREADY more or less in the Stone Age.
and yes, sure, you get a LOT of anger at the proper targets, esp. among your more radical factions, but you notice it's always directed (in peoples' minds at least--hey, maybe this is a universal thing, at that, who knows)--upward. Fight The Power. not each other. except when we do, and we just can't understand how this happens, can't we all just get along?
so that's one thing.
and then, not to let the rest of y'all off the hook here, yes, it is true, there is i would say an over-reliance on that particular emotion, anger, to the exclusion of more vulnerable-making emotions. as you say: grief, fear, shame, compassion. and hey: anger feels PRODUCTIVE. it feels like you're DOING something. and oh yeah: that feeling, it can also be rather ADDICTIVE. adrenaline rush: duuuuuuude. nice.
but christ forbid we ever break down and see what's BEHIND all that rage.
"Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord."
yeah. terrific. that's been working out so well.
oh, yes, and: Go shopping. Buy something. That, too.
"The lights must never go out.
The music must always play,
Lest we should see where we are;
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the dark
Who have never been happy or good..."
anger is legitimate. my responses after That Day was not that folks shouldn't be angry; it's that folks in power couldn't afford to let anger cloud their decision-making. and that angry folks sometimes don't make very useful or productive decisions.
sometimes anger allows a kind of clarity, and i'm all for righteous anger.
but speaking as someone who was not in NY when that day happened, i personally was petrified that anger and fear were going to be manipulated to cause more pain.
i'm not blaming folks who were angry for what has ensued since That Day, let me be clear.
i do think that unfortunately we had an administration in power that was ready to manipulate the emotions of many people to justify some pretty heinous deeds.
By the way, just in case thise needs saying -
Just because someone's to the right of me certainly doesn't make them a wingnut. Just because someone's angry doesn't make them a wingnut. Heck, if someone's upset with someone else for not being angry, that doesn't even make them a wingnut.
I was really just addressing those on the right who reacted/continue to react the same way as the people on the left whom you describe - questioning the legitimacy of another's reaction. Those are who I mean when I say wingnuts. Also, Jeff G*ldst*in.
And with all those caveats in place, I'll say that I wasn't being a smartass (for once!) - that there's a large contingent who think that being mad - mad enough to kill - is a prerequisite for being an American.
I'll say that I wasn't being a smartass
Snarky, though, and unserious in tone.
there's a large contingent who think that being mad - mad enough to kill - is a prerequisite for being an American.
Yup. You have to be at least mad enough to post faked photos of some guy pissing on a Koran, because really, if you aren't angry enough to slag off an entire religion, you probably shouldn't be able to vote, Stalinist.
This is also known as Reason #1 of why I left mu.nu.
Complete ditto to Chris Clarke's comment.
And Ilyka knows from conversations way back, I had full-blown Bush Derangement Syndrome long before he was elected. (I only got over it around the time the rest of the country caught on.) Yet, shortly after 9/11 I was praying for the bastard, and thinking, "Gee, maybe I'll be glad he's the President."
Pissed it all away, indeed.
yup.
well, i never did hold out much hope, but for about fifteen minutes there i was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
that kind of ended when he kept just not showing up, like, at all.
and then finally the actual speech--not the WE CAN HEAR YOU crap when he -finally- got his useless ass over here, but the televised one from the undisclosed location, you know: he seriously looked like he was crapping himself.
kind of not really what you want to see, esp. from later self-styled Fearless Leader;
and, well, it all went downhill from there, what with the actual steps he/they took, in so many ways. yes indeedy: i feel SO much safer now. you betcha.
the other part of it was, -Giuliani,- complex and ratfuck-y as he is, did redeem himself a lot in those first awful days at least as morale-booster. yeah, you can still fault him for a fuck of a lot, and my cynicism came back by the time elections rolled around again (not for a lot of people, though, clearly, else we'd have had no Bloomberg, i expect; or, well, hindsight, who knows).
but seriously, it was like night and day. even with such -helpful- advice as "buy something," even with, well, everything. at least he was here and, for those days, was one of us.
Bush was then, and always has been, a Potemkin president.
and the reason, i submit, people rallied around him so desperately is because they NEEDED to see what so patently -wasn't- there: genuine leadership.
Chauncey Gardner, red courtesy telephone for you.
well, no; Chauncey was kind of a nice guy, really, if a cipher.
Guess again. I've never liked him. I find him bombastic and annoying; and frankly i had no idea what if anything the ideological slant of this last pic was supposed to have what i am saying is it is TOO GODDAM SOON, i saw the fucking thing for myself, i do not want to see yet another bloody MOW made out of this, the previews themselves sent me into hives and foaming.
and by the way: you know what "assume" does, don't you?
>Radical Islamic ideology. It is as real a threat to our century as fascism/nazism was a threat to our country in the last century
Funny; see, while I agree that that stuff is bloody pernicious, also, I -personally-, living here, feel a lot more directly threatened by radical theocratic Christian ideology.
and that generally speaking, the best way to keep from driving yet more and MORE people to radicalism is not to keep right on bombing the shit out of them and their homes and their sons and daughters and parents and grandparents and husbands and wives and infants. among other things which make That Day, awful as it was, look like a walk in the park, and happen Over There to Those People every goddam day and has been happening for the last 3+ years.
wacky notion, i realize, seeing as how Those People are not like you and I but have sticky black ichor running through their veins, and all. nonetheless.
and it's funny, you know: personally, I do actually believe in evil. Yeah. Liberal, secular-pagan, relativistic, Enlightenment-believing me. I do believe in morals. Too.
and I still think this war was an utter and complete fucking mistake; and that while most people are simply acting out of fear, in -some- cases, the willful and persistent refusal to see -just how much suffering we're causing?- In the name of whatever the fuck ideology it's supposed to be? Project for a New American Century (no, no intimations of "Thousand-Year Reich" there), is it?
Yes. Evil. That, too.
Just as much as Bin Laden.
Whom I'm sure that going after Saddam Motherfucking Hussein was the best way in which to bring him (who?) to justice, Bin (who?) Ladin, -and- spread peace and justice and safety, cause, well, check it out!!
>There is only two choices on why we haven't been hit again on American soil after 9/11 ... either one believes that Islamist terrorists have just decided that was that and we are NOT a target anymore (which is kind of belied by things like the liquid-explosives plot) or that the Bush Admin, not perfect, has done something right enough security wise that the terrorists have just figured to hit softer targets...in England, Spain, India and elsewheres.>
Uh, wrong again: there are one other possibility: *it just hasn't happened yet.*
9/11 took some planning, you know. They bide their time, those people; they would appear, at least the planners of such events, if not the actual creep-sad saps who carried them out, to be capable of looooooooong patience; this is one way in which they would appear to be fundamentally different from us.
And, okay, let's ignore how 9/11 happened under Dubya's watch in the damn first place; eight months into his tenure and hot on the little heels of a month-long vacation. Hey. He's done real good to make up for it, right?
Well. And then there was Katrina; and boy, you know, if there's one thing that just fills me up with confidence in Fearless Leader being prepared for any eventuality, it was how that was handled, or rather wasn't.
Yessiree Bob. He's doing a heckuva job!
...oh, what's the bloody use?
Yep. That's me. Not serious at all. You're quite right, darleen: truly, it's not worth it.
nah, they don't tend to blow -themselves- up so much; just, you know, shoot abortion doctors, firebomb abortion clinics and gay nightclubs, beat the living crap out of their kids and call it "discipline," in some cases write screeds that look one fuck of a lot like a how-to-create-yer-own "Handmaid's Tale" (google R. Rushdoony sometime, since we're apparently giving each other recommendations here), and oh yeah, provide justifications for this COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY BULLSHIT WAR via appeals to, yes, "crusades."
But you know: really, not interested in some sort of Theocratic Queen For A Day, here: they -all- suck.
MURDEROUS FUNDAMENTALIST THUNDERDOME!! TWO ANGRY DESERT GODS AND ALL THEIR LOOPIER FOLLOWERS ENTER!! NO ONE LEAVES!!
and here I am, stuck in the middle, with, um, well...
why am I even talking to you, anyway?
..the only real difference between say Randall Terry and Bin Laden is effectiveness, really.
and speaking of the former, isn't he running for Senate, now?
I should have said, of course,
"TWO VERY SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SAME DESERT GOD ENTER!..."
three, six, what have you.
yeah. the real problem, Darleen, and you know why you feel so VERY strongly about them, don't you, isn't so much that "those people" are so very different from you and your interpretation of the Manual--murderous, irrational, brains half-fried by the desert--it's that they're all too fucking similar.
well. and I have a number of lovely, progressive, human Christians -and- Moslems on the 'roll and in my life, and would no more judge them by the lunatics peddling their hate under those names than i would adjudge all feminists (including me) by some of the nutjobs i've been engaging with lately.
but hey: who needs discernment and nuance when you've got THE BOMB, BABY? SMITE 'EM ALL!!!
...I could even add to that, "and conservatives, too." I -like- conservatives. Real ones. Conservatives actually want to, you know, -conserve- things. Maybe not necessarily emphasis or even agreement on all the things -I- want to conserve, but you know: they have, how you say? Values. Decency. It's rather -radically- different from the current gang of muderderous reactionary fuckwads doing their best to drive this country, this PLANET into the same amoral worthless shithole that abides in what passes for their souls, not to mention their die-hard mouth-breathing enablers I mean supporters.
"legitimate anger," Why, yes, you know, I believe I will have some of that, thank'ee kindly.
you see, Darleen, what you seem to be utterly failing to grasp is that Those People ALSO give a crap about their sons and daughters and grandchildren.
And that picking their lifeless bloody corpses out of the rubble that used to be their homes and lives, their children, their parents, their grandchildren, for SOME STRANGE REASON is not exactly endearing us to, you know, Those People. and -might- even be pushing them into thoughts of, oh, i don't know, REVENGE? the survivors? of the how many is it now? 47 THOUSAND (officially) dead, is it?
That whole "eye for an eye" business? First of all: it's only valued now because it was better than what came BEFORE that; i.e. a whole fucking person for an eye or a bit of property. We're supposed to have evolved a bit since then. Your purported Saviour talks a bit about such things, or so my heathen ass is given to understand.
(no, do NOT bother with the "bring not peace but a sword" business. forest: trees).
SECOND, you see, the promlem is, the PROBLEM IS, what WE'RE doing right now IS in fact "a whole fucking person for an eye."
and then we ("we") just simply CAN'T UNDERSTAND why people are getting all upset.
for fuck's sake.
>But we are held to DIFFERENT standard.
No, "we" really fucking aren't, in fact. What is happening, in fact, is exactly the opposite: we HAVE BEEN holding ourselves to a different standard, and people are calling us ("us") on it, and, like any enraged narcissist who's gotten our collective balloon-like ego jabbed, we (well, SOME OF US) can't stand it.
>those of us that see the awesome promise and good of America despite her flaws>
Keep tilting at that straw-liberal. Because as it happens, personally? like many many of My People, I -also- see awesome promise and good in the template of the founding documents, and in the people here (and elsewhere too, goddamit). Even though the "flaws," as you call them, are not trivial and cannot be brushed lightly away. Now talking flaws even in the conception and founding, yes. Yes, that's there, too. And old ghosts do come back to haunt eventually, one way or another. That's nothing to do with ideology. That's just reality. Sorry.
But right NOW, Darleen? See, the main difference between us isn't that one of us cares about this country and despairs of the people who are trying to piss it all away.
It's just that we happen to differ on who, in this country, is primarily responsible for the pissing away.
And I'm looking right at you, too, Darleen, you nasty, bigoted, knee-jerk reactionary, pugnacious little cuss.
now: kiss my big, shiny, queer, multiculti-lovin', urban, lib'rul, culturally Jewish tuchis.
"Save for the fact we are, again, looking at yet another person who finds all killing morally equivalent ... which is a moral abomination "
Yeah. Adult. -Moral.- Clearly, the -moral- position is to believe that -some peoples' grandchildren matter more than others'."
even if--ESPECIALLY if--there was NO REASON TO BE IN THAT PARTICULAR WAR IN THE GODDAM FIRST PLACE.
Hey, Darleen, I had lunch with Jesus the other day; He said to tell you that he thinks you're being a hateful cowardly vicariously bloodthirsty spiritually bankrupt fuck as well, and to knock it the fuck off, or he's gonna overturn your tables so fast it'll make your head spin.
and also: your fly's unzipped.
and, Darleen? Adults don't whine about how it's not FAIR how everyone is PICKING on poor little the most powerful goddam country in the world.
or how it's HARD WORK to do their -fucking job.- which they don't do.
nor yet resort to childish caricatures of their opponents' positions; nor yet hide their own gutlessness and venality behind a flag and a seriously misplaced Daddy figure; nor yet do they place ethnic slurs and hateful thoughts in other peoples' mouths and then, when called on it, stubbornly refuse -any- ownership of their own hate.
yeah, criticism. really rough. And demanding--hell, -asking-, politely, and then being ignored--that Fearless Leader maybe actually verify his claims before marching into war; and then, oopsie, guess we just can't find those weapons of mass destruction, haha, ain't I a kidder, anyone for golf?
What was that phrase? "Bigotry of soft expectations," was it?
Oh, whatever. You've heard it all before, no doubt; and what you haven't you can quickly replace with your own fantasies, as we've seen.
but jesus CHRIST, woman. you know, i have been -trying- to be civil here or at least, you know, ignore you, on account of I like this blog, even though on top of the "kikes" crap which you still won't even begin to own, you consistently say shit i find incredibly offensive; and yet, there you go! again and again! going out of your way to call my name; gumming my ankle with your tired-ass jingoism and bigotry.
seriously: does this sort of thing get you wet? Once more into the breach? A nice comfy safe and extremely watered-down substitute for the killing you so clearly reslish? Because if that's all this is, I have no wish to further enable you.
Oh, so Darleen, you mean where a converted Christian shot a bunch of people in Seattle, then, right? Because that's what happened, ass-stain.
Oh, and it's je ne sais quoi.
Dumbass.
Let me help everyone out.
Here's a clue, both of you are repeating the same talking points both sides have been putting out for the last 5 years.
NEITHER OF YOU HAS ANY FUCKING THING NEW TO SAY.
Neither of you will convince the other of absolutely anything.
Once you realized that you could try acting like adults or you can begin accusing each other of hating Jews and descend into obscenities and making complete asses of yourself.
After 5 years it's completely predictable what people will choose to do.
>jeune c'est quoi
Is this supposed to be some sort of labored joke about his age, or are you really that ignorant?
well gower, it's a wide wide world full of many entertainments, should you not find sufficient from the likes of us.
per obscenities:
"You're the vulgarian, you fuck"
--Fish Called Wanda
..sums up my feelings about that sort of pecksniffery rather nicely.
I mean, yeah, I don't know, it's just terrific, really. You know more about anti-Semitism -and- being Jewish than I do because you read the Books and are foamingly defensive of Israel; this, no matter how many times people explain to you that no, in fact, really, critical of Israel's policies =! anti-Semitic -and- that in fact they find YOU really offensive.
and now, what, you know more about the meaning of that Terrible Awful Day, than I, I expect, even though I was actually LIVING HERE;
and of course all about what's really going on in that part of the world and what war is -really- like even though you've, what, never set foot out of the country is it?
Such wisdom; it overwhelms.
>and will make moronic statements she can't back up with anything, like that slavery wasn't given a stamp of approval by many religious leaders who called it moral and just.>
wait. seriously?
wait. why would i be surprised?
never mind.
Yeah, I had forgotten that Darleen is one of those people who write off everything as "Those darn kids and their loud music." Pathetic really, especially when she never offers up evidence to back her claims.
Oh, and yeah. I got into it with some of the PW fuckstains about pacifism and Darleen came along saying I was immoral and I said the morality has been used to justify bullshit oppression, like the slave trade, throughout history, to which she replied "Nyuh uh!"
Heh. Sorry, ilyka. Darleen tends to get my dander up. Lo siento.
When conservatives are losing an argument they wrap themselves in the flag and call the other side traitors,
when liberals are losing an argument they wrap themselves in victimization and call the other side bigots.
Really Belle are you by any chance Jewish???? Really???? Wow I had no idea...
Because you've only mentioned it like 500 times in the thread with absolutely no relevance whatsoever except that it lets you scream BIGOT at Darlene the top of your lungs.
Your grandfather was denied a higher education? My grandfather was beaten bloody by the Irish. Do you see me bringing it up in any discussion with Irish people. If I did I'd sound just as loony as you.
I'm 1/4 Jewish, 1/4 Scottish and half Norwegian. Do I get to shut down any discussion by screaming "Wah, Wah Bigot" too?
And whenever "voices of reason" have no reason to talk, they make glib statements that make it obvious that they wank to pictures of themselves.
[what the hell is blogger's deal today?]
Thanks for proving my point, gower! Just be sure to clean up when your done. This thread is already kinda messy.
"Messy" does not begin to describe. OH MY HEAVENLY DAYS.
I did warn you...
mea culpa, really; there are just, you know, these days and certain people when i decide we've been dating long enough i can skip the foreplay and go straight to the machete.
Here, though (offers towel, Clorox, sage smudge stick, hauling buckets of water).
Gower--why am I addressing you--well, I'm not, really, I suppose--there is a backstory there, albeit not a terribly interesting one. Darleen herself is rather quick to pull the "antisemite" card, as it happens; there was an earlier exchange in which I suggested that in fact putting the words "I hate kikes" into the mouth of a well-known liberal blogger (who was in fact saying no such thing) is really not on, even if one does, in fact, feel really, really strongly about Israel for one's own hard-right religio-ideological reasons.
It is even less on to respond to an actual Jewish person who tells one that no, in fact, one ONESELF is in fact being far more offensive than the supposedly antisemitic post, spavined attempt at "sarcasm" notwithstanding, to the effect that one understands such matters better because one is more learned in Torah and Talmud and some of one's best distant relatives are Jewish.
and then, well, the rest of it, here and elsewhere, and sooner or later...yeah. I've been insulating myself from this particular flavor of whatever-it-is for a while; perhaps it's just time i got used to it again. Or, well, not, really.
frankly, "realness" debates are annoying enough, and i don't often engage in them at all if I can help it; but really, enough already. I mean, i can probably ignore that -or- the constant sniping -or- the nasty-near-trolling i've frequently witnessed elsewhere -or- the bloodthirsty slant on politics which already gives me hives; but, well, sometimes there is let's say a confluence.
and i swear like a sailor even on my best days; i like sailors.
(stops, shakes herself, goes to refill bucket)
So, anyway: anger. Yeah, I'd say I had some left to process. Mm.
just look at it as group therapy. Or, you know, a cross between group therapy and field hockey. something like that.
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